We love nothing more than a good, frothy scandal. As a rule, politics offers more than its share. Embarrassed, dowdy men in austere suits who were kicked out of the office for not being able to keep their pants closed has long been a staple of this ever-popular genre.
ritain has offered more than his share. The Profumo case in the 1960s, alternately captivating and horrific, has only been matched by the bizarre Jeremy Thorpe scandal a decade later. There are countless others, but those two set the bar impossibly high. Two naughty guys who together sold many millions of newspapers and inspired television series and at least one movie.
The Chris Pincher case was not in that league. A politician who would supposedly drunkenly grope other Tories in an exclusive club would barely make it into the top 100. Boris Johnson so it deserves immortality, though the brutality of the impropriety hardly justifies it.
Our political scandals have been mediocre by comparison. More often about bulging brown envelopes or ministers driving the N7 three sheets against the wind.
Rarely about a Teachta Dála reaching quota in the wrong bed. Honorable exceptions, of course. Nod and wink.
That could explain our endless fascination with scandals about the water. Its range and variety keeps the juices flowing.
Boris has honestly never offered a dull moment. Although political duplicity eventually got him, it was the serial scandals that fascinated us the most.
His personal life has always been an inexplicable mess, and he has proven to be as faithful to the countless women in his life as he is to the international laws to which he has pledged his country.
That may make him what they used to call a linesman at Eton, but it has also particularly fascinated him with Ireland, a country that loves nothing more than to find something English to feel superior about.
Our history, or at least the bits we like to learn and remember, is all about the lies, betrayal and untrustworthiness of our neighbors. Johnson seems to embody all those genetic weaknesses and more.
All of this has taken on a sharper focus as the feud over the Northern Ireland Protocol has intensified in recent years. Boris’ oven-ready Brexit deal had choked this solution into the dust, but he chose to wriggle out of it too.
When asked why Leo Varadkar couldn’t be called a Murphy “like the rest,” Johnson often mixed such playful humor with a touch of biting xenophobic.
It was something that made him popular in the Tory shires and the rust belt of northern England, but it made him something of a pantomime villain on John Bull’s other island.
No doubt the Conservative Party, a slave to low standards in high places, will soon scandalize us again. We wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves if we didn’t.
